It wasn't the name you learned to write at school

I am not a fitter in-ner. I don't know what 'in' even means anymore honestly but there has been the lifelong sense of 'otherness.' The girl who cried over Jane Eyre, listened to Dolly Parton when country was NOT cool, re-read all the books assigned to her in English class before the exam and would spend a whole weekend in the ballet studio rather then at football games and dances. I wanted to belong. I didn't.


I see things differently now. The only thing I really didn't belong to was 'me.' I was disconnected from self and couldn't see t hat these things that I loved where simply an expression of that and were no more or less valuable than what everyone else was doing. And also who gives a flying stink about what other people think now? At the time it was everything. Everyone else has their own similar to this. If only we could understand that growing up, we would scar our souls less deeply.


In adulthood, this trend continues.We see others and think they have some secret....some way into happiness, prosperity, and success that we are somehow missing. I see it in my students.  The sly look one student will give another who's doing some 'fuller' expression of a pose. There is a flicker across the face: I should be able to do that. What is wrong with me? I can't do this. I should stop coming to this class.


On the yoga mat, we can't really hide. We will harm ourselves if we try to 'fit in' with what the person next to us doing. The body does not lie. By wishing for the reality of another body, we are shunning ourselves. As a teacher of mine once said: If you want her hamstrings, you need to take her whole life too. His point being...we have no idea what pain and suffering lie behind the surface expression of a person that we see. The beautiful perfect person you see...what suffering does she hide behind those eyes? We don't really know yet we spend a lot of wanting what we THINK others have.


I wanted to be cool, popular, pretty, funny...like the right music and be accepted and admired by my peers. What girl and/or boy does not? I turned this whole thing into a big story about how I fit in nowhere. I was not suited for x,y,z because of my 'otherness.' I practiced yoga like this for a long time. If I could only do x pose like her, then I would be good. If I can do this pose, then the teacher will see me and approve of me. I will finally belong. I was missing a big fat point. 


It is many many years later. I still have these stories running in my head that I don't belong. But I get on my mat and I stand there in my body in that moment and well....nothing else matters. I arrive..fully formed and perfect in my imperfection. Maybe if I do this often enough I will get it...there is nothing to belong to really other than to show up for all the moments of our lives. 

We see a tree all gnarled and twisted with messy moss and untidy flaking bark and think: That tree is perfect. Why don't we see the same grace in our selves? We spend so much time diminishing ourselves and wishing things away. When these moments of crushing self-doubt arrive, call on something wilder. For me that is my inner' wolf.' She breathes here inside of me. a strength and a ferocity I often doubt I have. She is a presence that is unshakable and has been here since before I was born. I reach down and touch that warm wild fur and know I will be okay.

Step back and watch your body, being a body.
Watch an arm move through space, watch an ankle turn.
Watch your body, as it likes things or doesn’t,
as it gets scrapes and bruises
as the skin darkens and falls into folds.
Step back to the perimeter of the theater
and watch your body on the stage.
Recede to that quiet knowing:
For now, I am associated with this body –
not inside it, or one with it –
just associated, for a time.
Casing. Only casing.
Be kind to the casing if you like – put oils
on it and nourish it and move it to keep it stronger, for a time.
Never become it. There, only suffering.
Can you feel the one deep inside your chest,
who has existed forever?
Who has made a thousand journeys?
Who feels like a comet in the dark?
The inner filament?
I know, no one ever told you.
I know. It wasn’t the name you learned to write at school,
but that one is you.
That one is the real you. - Tara Sophia Mohr

 

Pina's Eyes

I often look up words in the dictionary that are used frequently in vernacular speech in order to see what they mean in their 'pristine' state. Language gets changed and charged through the lends of a particular culture. My word today was healthy. Here are some definitions of this commonly bandied word that I found: 

curing or curative; prescribed or helping to heal
growing sound; getting well; mending 

Some of the meaning behind this word implies that something is broken...has gone astray and needs to be changed in order to be okay and acceptable.  


Don't worry this is not going to be a discourse on semantics. But when we seek 'health' what are we really looking for?


Many of us pursue yoga to acquire health. Many of us seek meditation or other contemplative practices in order to restore the balance and soundness of the mind. Food choices and other kinds of exercise also apply here. My point is that I am not sure we are actually 'unwell.' This can be argued on some of the surface details: weight, disease, mind set etc. but I am talking about a deeper thing here. The longer I practice, the more it feels like we are seeking 'balance' or a centered place from which to experience whatever comes our way. And sometimes there are days when there is illness in the body, days when our minds are running loose like wild horses and days when we eat a bag of potato chips. But are we in need of mending?


Seeking health feels like a pursuit of something outside ourselves. Some 'cure' that will make whatever is ailing go away. Don't get me wrong. We need medicine, professional help, certain kinds of interventions in order to bring ourselves to a place where we are functioning optimally in body, mind, and spirit. The thing I am trying to get at here is more of a mindset around how we perceive ourselves and our challenges. 


I try too hard to be good. I strive for a more compassionate heart, to be a better friend, to be a better student, to be better. I work to restore and maintain physical and mental health. I think I am missing something in these efforts. 


I saw the Wenders documentary on Pina Bausch last night. I have loved her work since I was a little girl peering at her lipstick smeared dancers in Dance Magazine. Seeing her company perform a few years back at Zellerbach was a deep and stunning thing to behold. What struck me today was the work - the choreography - the bold brazen nudity of Pina's self - nothing was hidden or held back in either the architecture and theatricality of the pieces or most importantly in her dancers. 


Watching those dancers move..I don't really have words. The inhabit every little thing they do. They are not hiding and in the process they appear to be moving and doing without effort....even though most beautifully you can hear their labored breathing after intense physical movement. It lit me up.


My point....Neither Pina nor her dancers think any thing at all is broken to be fixed. They show up for what is present in the human heart and express it in a way that yes 'mends' me. Art heals not our sharded selves but by shining a mirror to what has been and will be in us all along. Go see the movie if you are interested. In this world of constant striving, wars, famine and unkindness, I am allowed to see who we really are reflected in art such as this.

She chooses her words carefully and hides her intelligence and creativity behind an unassuming graciousness. Intensely curious she always appears to be looking at any situation she is in to try to find what is of most value. The moments she stops to consider are most often small interpersonal connections: the little things that reveal a greater sense of the people she meets. It is this driving interest in people, expressed in all their particularity that funds both her personal interactions and her work. 

Being a Person

Be a person here. Stand by the river, invoke the owls. Invoke winter, then spring. Let any season that wants to come here make its own call. After that sound goes away, wait. A slow bubble rises through the earth and begins to include sky, stars, all space, even the outracing, expanding thought. Come back and hear the little sound again. Suddenly this dream you are having matches everyone’s dream, and the result is the world. If a different call came there wouldn’t be any world, or you, or the river, or the owls calling. How you stand here is important. How you listen for the next things to happen. How you breathe.- William Stafford

I will not be able to express this as well as Stafford does. But this poem encapsulates a realization that came to me today out of nowhere. My practices – yoga, pranayama, and meditation – are newly shiny to me right now in the light of this. I will try to explain.

 

Manouso says ‘go inward’ at the beginning of class as we prepare to do the chant to Patanjali. It took me a long long time to resonate with this statement. What does it mean and how does it make me a better person in my day to day life? Go inward and do WHAT? I struggled with what was supposed to happen.

Everlasting peace? Skillful action? Lightening bolts of realization? Some trippy perfect mind state from which I could float along happy and squishy in my orb of bliss?

As Stafford says: “A slow bubble rises through the earth” None of this is about being perfect. none of this about achieving anything or getting somewhere. All of this is about standing right where you are for whatever is present and arising. Bliss and peace can and do exist in individual moments but like all things they come and go. There is no particular state we seek. This requires acceptance of impermanence which is perhaps why I have fought this for so long.

A part of me was waiting for something magnificent to happen. Like getting struck awake on my mat and in an instant all my struggles would cease. And seeking some sense of peacefulness that would descend on me and stay. The answer all along has been in my experience on the mat – We seek presence. Merely mindful presence. For the good poses….the bad poses….the aches..the pains. The deaths the tears the loss the joy. The wonder and the boredom. If you miss it you miss you this whole life really.

And this is the only way, I believe to heal self and others. What greater gift can you give someone that witnessing someone with mindful presence? Free from control. Letting the judging mind be at rest. I see now that doing it with myself is going to be the only way to show up like that for other people. This is the skillful action that Manouso talks about.

And it means you have to stand in the heat of the fire. It means you have to stop seeking false refuges that take you away from what is going on right now. It means staying and working in and in uncomfortable places. Parvrtta Trikoasana is my best teacher for this. The more I turn back to that pose to understand and unravel it the more I understand how possibility exists in everything when we pay attention. Even if we attempt poses we will never do like they appear in Light on Yoga, if we do it from that place of ‘seeing what is available’ today, we move forward. It helps you show up for whatever is going down on the mat, inside your heart and in your mind in any given moment.

This is my new definition of ‘going inward.’ Just freaking showing up for self and others no matter what storm is raging.

“How you stand here is important. How you listen for the next things to happen. How you breathe.” Yeah that’s it. When I place my feet together tonight in Tadasana spreading the awareness into the body, I will remember these lines and smile.

You should examine yourself and askhow many times you have tried toconnect with your heart, fully andtruly. How often have you turnedaway because you feared you mightdiscover something terrible aboutyourself? How often have you beenwilling to look at your face in themirror, without being embarrassed? —Chogyam Trungpa

Like a Mountain

Tadasana Looking for my mountain-ness. This week I am like a sand pile in a windstorm. Blown away. Gone.

Today Tadasana called to me. I assumed the pose where I was. Standing in the pose itself teaches me the thing. There is a wavering quality..a constant adjustment of the legs, hips, buttocks torso to keep the pose aligned. I AM movement itself in this most simple and still of poses. There is no locking down. No ability to find stasis even if I grip with all my might. Muscle fibers shift, effort waxes and wanes and the mind drifts through changing waters endless. My mountain is living and dying over and over again.

Is that the point maybe of ALL of this? I don’t know anymore. It is about learning to live and die in every breath we take. Starting and finishing. Renewal and death in every pose. In every moment that is possible. That’s the lesson I think. I am convinced this is not a lesson for the faint of heart. 

As I watch myself writhe, caught in samskara this week, I wondered if maybe instead of fighting so hard to get out of it…I should just relax and be the mountain that moves and shakes but is still here…living and dying.

 But do not ask me where I am going,As I travel in this limitless world,Where every step I take is my home.- Dogen

Satya and Yoga Scandals

This is probably a post I should keep to myself. I felt strongly that there was something important to learn in my own embarrassing and less than yogic internal dialogue around a big story that broke in the yoga circles last week. I will take a dive off a cliff and share this so maybe we can talk about what goes on when we get caught up in our 'Ego' mind.


Here is how the story goes:


1. Last Friday story breaks on major yoga-related web site about allegations of not so great stuff about John Friend  (Note: I am not going to discuss them here or even provide links. If you want to find the information, it is out there in the blogosphere. This post is not about what happened and I really don't want to continue to feed any kind of gossip machine.)


2. I read the article as well as the web site that was supposedly exposing all of this stuff. I told some friends about it. I got amped up about the 'scandal.' There was a combination of shock, disdain, and then "I thought so" kind of stuff that crossed my mind. I found myself wanting to talk about it and wanting to let people know about this.


Let me set some context: I practiced Anusara yoga for many years. I know many dear people and teachers that I respect who still do. When I left this 'system' of yoga to pursue a teaching certification in Iyengar yoga, I had many reasons for doing so but the primary one was that Iyengar yoga more closely suited who I am as a person, teacher and practitioner. I had conflict for a time about this choice knowing full well that the Anusara system was on the 'rise' and more popular than my chosen path. It was cool and me standing over here in my Pune pants...well that is not cool. Staying in that system probably meant more 'success' in terms of the number of students and ' my marketability.' I  thought I did not struggle with this anymore since I have found my yogic home. Have I been waiting for something to crack in Anusara-land order to defend and armor my own choice?


Why? 


Here goes....taking a deep breath...some part of this is the story line that many of us get hooked on: See, my way of doing things IS better. Ok this ship of Anusara yoga is going to go down and we'll become the popular yoga again! My decision to pursue Iyengar yoga will be vindicated!


Isn't that what it comes down to frequently when strong judgments arise? We want to feel better about ourselves. My whole thought parade has nothing to do with John Friend or the Anusara system. But, it serves as an example of what happens when I don't examine my conditioned responses AND when I don't trust myself. The reasons for my switch were truly valid and came from my heart. That should be enough. I don't need continued proof that this was the 'right' thing to do since it so clearly IS on so many levels. Since I am big into busting my own assumptions about self right now, I chose to write about this and see if there is another way.


Yeah there is another way. I brought it up a few weeks ago in my piece about the homeless woman. We are all the same. I am John Friend and he is me. I am Manouso and Iyengar and they are me. Our external realities differ but we seek love, shelter, food and meaning. We are all 100% human. Don't judge anything until you have walked in someone else's shoes. I don't know what the hell happened with John and it doesn't actually matter. And honestly, our society spends a lot of time judging and deciding who is right or wrong. I can sit with compassion for JF and whatever pain, holes, ego-stuff put him in the center of this storm. I also feel deeply sorry for what his teachers (and the many Anusara students around the world ) must be experiencing right now. 


To put it in perspective: what if this scandal was about Iyengar? How would I feel? What kind of fear and confusion would I be dealing with? What would my response be? I would be devastated. I would be sad and shaken to the foundations. Here is this person who has been saying one thing and doing quite the opposite (HONESTLY who on this planet can't say they behave like this on a regular basis). When that gets cracked, it is hard shit.


What would serve me if this had happened to my community? Certainly no one saying things like "I told you so," "my teacher is so not like that" or "my system is better than yours so maybe you'll finally see." I would seek my community and I would do my practice.


John, like Iyengar and Manouso, is just a man. And no matter the category we put people in: Iyengar, Anusara, gay, straight, pagan, wiccan, Republican or Democrat...we all have the capacity to royally fuck up and we all the have the capacity to forgive. And on that note, there is no one 'better' way. There is the way that works for me and then the way that works for you. When the shared goal is self realization, a kinder world, healthier minds and bodies, who really CARES how we get there if the endeavor is authentic?


In this time of division and a pathological categorization of people, I am going to drop the label. I am not an Iyengar yogi. I am just a yogi. I stand in support of all teachers and students everywhere. We are all seekers. The only thing I am responsible for  is evaluating and holding accountable my own practice. The rest of what goes on is REALLY not my business and just increases the divisions that already exist.  If I am doing my own part to heal the gaping wounds of judgement and cruelty, well then what else matters?


Anyone else care to join me? "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." - I think that's Jesus who said that

Breathe

Coming back to more earthly topics today...like breath and pranayama practice.


Trying to write about this is almost a silly thing since it is so personal and indescribable. My home asana practice was easier for me to embrace. Maybe because it is 'grosser' and more comfortable. The same meditative presence exists on my mat that I find in my breathing practice, but pranayama is more provoking and at the same time subtle. 


The breath is its own mood. I can see why Iyengar talks about the sheer 'boredom' of this thing. I sit down. I breath. I watch I do it again. I listen. I regulate. I surrender. I do it again. On some days I literally drag my sorry butt to my pranayama set-up. I do it even when crap knows I could sleep more, read more, cook more or whatever else I could be doing. Why? I ask myself that often in my struggle dance with this practice.


What is progress in this pranayama? Maybe that is part of it.  I am kind of a perfectionist. I can't make shit happen with the breath or the whole thing blows up in my face. Asana has more tangible results. I can feel poses change my structure or feel the release of a long held muscle etc. The breath is the wild wolf of me running free....and when I start to engage with that, pay attention to that, and start to regulate and take some minor control over what happens to my breath...a whole other world opens up and honestly it scares me a little.


Breath has an endless vast quality to it. You can get lost in its width and depth. But at the same time, I feel like it takes me on a journey to the center of me. Maybe that is what scares me. Ok I am just the me now who breaths...all the stories, fears, hopes, and beliefs fall away. What to do now when all that other stuff falls away from the bone?


Just be? Who knew. 

Body Talk

I am still sitting in the swamp wonder of Lidia Yuknavitch's Chronology of Water. Her writing is bones talking...what the body would say if it could choose its words. Rules don't belong in this inner world. Blood coursing, heart beating, organs churning..the endless work of the body for which there is no voice. 


When I  give the inner police a day off, my words arrive seemingly out of nowhere and spill onto paper and screens. They contain pieces of my soul. That particular cocktail of letters strung together to make meaning and taste. It gets said best when the rest of me gets out of the way. 


I make words up sometimes (flippajhante being a recent invention) when what is written in dictionaries feel too caged up or does not capture the blood meaning I seek. Mostly I rely on vocabulary that is part of vernacular speech and do not stray from the lexicon of acceptable words. 


Reading Chronology of Water made me braver. Remove the veil of fear. 


Words have started revolutions, freed slaves, and saved and lost lives. We speak them, push and pull them but mostly they pour from us seeking the light. The thing doing the seeking is us really..by us I mean the 'me' that is beyond my name, my origins, my body and any cognitive understanding I have of myself. Just pure being. 


This week there has been a lot of: Look what you can do with all these wondrous drinkable words! Name the un-namable and write a voice into being or give a being a voice. Once only silence and fear. Now verbs and perfectly pruned participles. 


A wordless domain the body. I wandered deep inside when I began yoga. It took a long time to get in...like really in. The dark wet spaces and bone hard tough corners and stringy muscles and  endless avenues of blood and nerve that map me alive. I navigate all of this with my practice and slowly the words are starting to arrive like they have finally accepted a long ago invitation to the party. 


For me, the words, the practice, the breath, the body...are celebration of nothing in particular except this moment right here. Bow down to your verbs, your pronouns, adverbs and the mighty adjectives..give them space to surprise you and express you.